Echo 1 CSR (Counter Sniper Rifle) Dragunov

I'm writing this blog to recount the events of yesterday June 20th 2012 and also to give my initial impression of the Echo 1 CSR. You can scroll to the third paragraph to get to the "good part" about the CSR.

So I ordered an A&K SVD from evike.com and received it in the mail. After pulling it out of the box I was excited, taking it out in the backyard and shooting it a bit i was semi-impressed. Wanting to adjust the hop-up I cracked the dust cover off and with an allen wrench tried to adjust it. Well, stupid me screwed the thing down too much and (probably) broke the hop-up. Getting angry with myself, I decided that since I was headed to Columbus, I would stop by airsoftsmith and see about getting it looked it. While at the store, I was informed that the wait to get guns fixed was going to be probably a month. Not happy about this, I decided to look around at the other guns they had because I needed a gun for Moonlight II. I looked and looked and was not really feeling any of the guns they had on the wall. Seeing this, the sells guy (forgot his name, if he's on the site, he probably remembers me) tells me, he just got in an AEG dragunov and wanted to know if I was interested.

He brought it out what I later learned was the ECHO 1 CSR or Counter Sniper Rifle which is like the Real Sword SVD AEG only with black polymer stock and handguard. I was immediately interested, and asked him if he could chrono it. He told me no problem that they had just got it in and he himself had not even chrono'ed it. Hooking up a battery to the rifle he pulled the trigger a few times to make sure it was working. The sound that beauty made was so unique, like no other AEG I'd heard before. He loaded up the mag with .2 bbs and fired a few shots through the chrono. It was shooting right around the 500 mark. At that point, I was pretty sure it was a sure sale. The CSR comes with an 8.4 1200 mah stick battery, two (YES TWO) high cap mags that hold right around 200 bbs each, a charger, and of course the rifle itself. Watching a few reviews (the few that are on YouTube) the gun features a orange Madbull hop-up thing (bucking? I am no good with internals), high torque motor, and a different style hop-up. The hop-up resembles the top turret on a scope and adjusts as such. The bolt is metal and gives a very satisfying Clack when actuated. This thing is a sweet shooter. Of course being semi auto, followup shots are instantaneous and the range on this thing is great. I was hitting no problem out to 200ft. Another great feature I'd like to point out is the quality of the stock and handguard. In comparison, it looks similar to the A&K SVD, but once you touch it, the difference is Night and Day. The only way I can describe the polymer is "fuzzy." It has great grip, unlike the A&K SVD which is slick and a bit shinier. In a word, its prefect and gives it that bit more feeling of realism. In conclusion, I don't think I have a bad thing to say about this thing.

Edit: Upon further digging, I've learned that the Real Sword SVD Mags are not compatible with the CSR. Currently Echo 1 only sells high cap mags for the gun (hope this changes). I hope that even though some fields require mid caps, the host will understand and let a player use the gun, considering the mag only holds about 200 bb's and some m4 midcaps hold up to 160-170 and since the gun is semi only, I don't see this as a problem. But all else fails, always have a backup